Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 8, 1993 TAG: 9309100394
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Can these private-sector leaders rescue thousands of at-risk young people - one at a time - from the quicksand of poverty, drug addiction, crime and social dystopia?
In Richmond, a group of successful men and women hopes to answer that question in the affirmative. They've launched a pilot One to One mentoring experiment that seeks to reverse the course of the lives of disadvantaged Virginia kids who appear headed down a ne'er-do-well road.
And keep holding the kids' hands until their feet are firmly set on a right path.
Too warm and fuzzy to work?
Perhaps. But the One to One program, founded in 1989 by a pair of Wall Street millionaire megadeal-makers turned social advocates, may offer communities and states a real shot at "saving" generations of kids - and their own economic hides.
Consider: In Roanoke alone, 50 percent of the children in public schools live in economically disadvantaged households; 23 percent of those 5 to 18 years old live in officially defined poverty.
In poorer neighborhoods, sadly, many kids see greater financial incentive in dealing drugs, stealing cars, breaking into homes, mugging citizens for their wallets and watches, robbing convenience stores and brandishing guns for ``business insurance'' than in staying in school, preparing for college and a career, and generally walking the straight and narrow.
Sure, they may get caught and ``pay'' for their crimes and dysfunctional life styles. So will the rest of America.
Virginia taxpayers now spend about $103 million a year on residential care for kids with serious behavior problems, and about $20 million a year on youth who are committed to state learning centers (correctional facilities for youngsters).
The state, by one estimate, will have to come up with an extra $510 million by 1998 for new prisons and jails.
Meanwhile, the state will spend more than $3 billion on support programs for kids who drop out of high school each year - even assuming the kids don't run afoul of the law. (Unemployment rates for dropouts are more than twice as high as for high-school graduates.)
And Virginia will spend about $200 million a year to support families that result from adolescent pregnancies.
But suppose a doctor, a lawyer, a banker or shopkeeper could connect, one on one, with every at-risk youngster in every community? Could tap the kid on the shoulder, say come along with me to my place of business and let me tell you how you, too , can become a doctor, lawyer, banker or shopkeeper. Let me show you what's in it for you.
Suppose, through a network of volunteers, funds could be made available to disadvantaged youngsters, for the youngsters to invest in stocks or bonds toward the financing of their college education or future business ownership?
This is basically how the One to One concept differs from other mentoring programs, such as Big Brothers or Big Sisters. (Members of those organizations are, incidentally, active participants of the One to One program in Richmond.)
It incorporates entrepreneurship and economic role-modeling with more traditional mentoring activities, aiming at showing disadvantaged kids that there are better ways to get out of poverty than drugs and crime.
Indeed, One to One calls itself a brokering organization. Its national founders, Raymond Chambers and Geoffrey Boisi, specialized in leveraged buyouts, investment banking, mergers and acquisitions.
They conceived a Wall Street commodity partnership for charity-minded investors whose trading profits would go mostly to help disadvantaged kids, but also cover the program's costs. The One to One Charitable Fund started trading as a limited partnership in 1992 with an initial $20 million from investors.
Since, drawing on traditional resources of volunteers as well as new converts from the business and professional sector, One to One mentoring programs have been established in several cities besides Richmond. Advocates hope the programs, with strong support from business leaders, will be in place in hundreds of other communities by 1995.
And why not? Business stands to be one of the biggest losers if the problems of disadvantaged youngsters keep accelerating, and the quality of the work force consequently worsens.
Already, American industry spends about $25 million a year on remedial education for employees and prospective employees. By one estimate, every dollar invested in a mentoring effort such as One to One yields a $9 savings to business in the form of lower costs of social programs for unemployable or incarcerated young people.
To be sure, the nascent One to One program won't be the total solution to complex problems such as crime, poverty, unemployment and homelessness. But more communities, Roanoke included, should try this leveraged approach to those problems.
Why not encourage young people to do capitalism instead of guns and drugs?
by CNB